Some modifications to my previous "Ukraine stance"

I wish to amend some previous remarks re: the Ukraine situation. My rant below was scarcely comprehensive, nor completely fair minded. As my wise FB friend P.N. succinctly pointed out: "Maybe if the US and its European sycophants hadn't moved eastward installing the NATO menace on Russia's borders....." Touche', P.N., that's a devastatingly correct and pertinent observation. As Putin rightly stated the other day: "They tell us that we are violating the norms of international law. First of all, it's good that they at least acknowledge that international law exists.... Our Western partners, led by the United States prefer to proceed not from international law, but the law of might in their practical policies." (See: "With stroke of Putin's pen, Russia grows, Ukraine wilts," Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press, March 19, 2014) None of this Putin-propagated piece of undeniable veracity does anything to moderate my view of Putin as a miserable autocrat and bigot, but it is imperative to make note of it, in order not to come off as being, well, one-sided. With that in mind, I must add that it was a reckless provocation to extend NATO's "Missile Defense" apparatus into Poland. It was a very risky maneuver against the Russians to send a nuclear-armed US Navy warship into the Black Sea during the height of Russia's gruesome 2008 war against Georgia. For that matter, it was unwise to so blatantly support certain anti-Kremlin machinations emanating from Georgia; doing so probably only encouraged the Russian leadership to respond even more forcefully against Georgian civilians, bombing Tblisi, etc. Covert American intervention in Ukraine, especially during and every day since 2004's "Orange Revolution," is a well-known fact. Sorry if it seems like I'm on a roller-coaster ride of hair splitting analysis; it's always been hard for me to speak out publicly on controversial matters without coming off as though I find myself omniscient. I'm not all-knowing, and I often blurt out things in an emotionally charged way, without reigning in periodic bouts of hyperbole. One thing's for sure: I'm going to be very careful about even SEEMING to support one side over the other. Ukrainian leadership of the last two decades has been hugely corrupt, and certainly hasn't served the Ukrainian people well. I still despise Putin and the bullying, nauseating Russian chauvinism he embodies, much in the same I way I despise George W. Bush for his nauseating, bullying wars of opportunity. But Russia HAS experienced several highly lethal historical lessons indicating it needs to protect itself from Western invasion and subterfuge.